Marko Daniel, Convenor of Public Programmes at London's Tate Modern and Tate Britain, has been appointed as the new director of the Fundació Joan Miró by the museum’s Board of Trustees, which approved a unanimous decision by a committee of experts set up to assess candidates after an international call was launched on June 12, 2017.
The expert committee comprised Ferran Barenblit, director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); Brigitte Léal, Associate Director of the Musée National d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris); Anne Umland, The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the MoMA (New York); Miguel Zugaza, Director of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao and former director of the Museo del Prado (Madrid); and the following members of the Board of Trustees of the Fundació Joan Miró: Jaume Freixa, Joan Punyet Miró, Rosa Maria Malet and Josep M. Coronas, as secretary. The Executive Committee of the Fundació Joan Miró praised the work of the expert committee and transmitted its proposal to the Board of Trustees, which unanimously approved the appointment.
After praising “the very highest degree of professional qualities” of all the candidates, the expert committee said that Marko Daniel “fulfills to the utmost all of the application requirements published in the international search for candidates.” According to the committee’s assessment, Marko Daniel is “the best candidate for the Fundació Joan Miró” thanks to his knowledge of the work of Joan Miró and of the Catalan, Spanish and international cultural and artistic sectors. The committee highlighted his financial management skills and his ability to promote actions aimed at increasing the museum’s resources, as well as his suitability for creating networks and setting up projects. In addition to his academic and professional abilities, and his knowledge of several languages, the committee also valued very highly his experience in team management and leadership, his communication and negotiating skills, and his ability in decision-making.
Marko Daniel will take up his post as artistic and executive director of the Fundació Joan Miró in January, 2018. Rosa Maria Malet, director of the Fundació Joan Miró since 1983, will retain close links to the museum as a member of the Board of Trustees. As an expert on the Miró’s work, she will be on the Board of the Fundació Mas Miró and will continue her work at the ADOM – Association pour la Défense de l’œuvre de Joan Miró, created in 1985 to protect, develop and promote knowledge of the artist’s work—and with the authentication of Miro’s original prints, by decision of the artist’s family.
Marko Daniel (Aachen, Germany, 1964) was awarded a degree in History of Art and Philosophy by University College London (1988), a PhD in History and Theory of Art by the University of Essex (1989), and is an expert on Chinese and Catalan contemporary art. Daniel developed a teaching career at the Winchester School of Art (part of the University of Southampton) (Lecturer 1994-2001, and Director of Graduate School 2003-2006); at the Department of Visual Communication, Da Yeh University and at the Center for Art and Technology, Taipei National University of the Arts, both in Taiwan; and as a Vice-Chair (since 2009) and faculty (since 2006) of the London Consortium. In 2006, Marko Daniel joined Tate Modern in London as Curator Public Programmes, managing the museum’s public programmes team. Since 2011 he has held the post of Convenor of Public Programmes for the two London sites of Tate, Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Amongst other projects, Marko Daniel was co-curator, with Matthew Gale and Teresa Montaner, of Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape, shown between 2011 and 2012 at Tate Modern in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the US, and at the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona.
